Portable electronic devices, such as those configured to be handheld or otherwise associated with a user, are employed in a wide variety of applications and environments. The ubiquity of such devices as mobile phones, wearables, including smart watches and glasses, digital still cameras and video cameras, handheld music and media players, portable video game devices and controllers, tablets, mobile internet devices (MIDs), personal navigation devices (PNDs), other APPlication acCESSORIES (or Appcessories for short) and other similar devices speaks the popularity and desire fir these types of devices. Increasingly, such devices are equipped with one or more sensors or other systems for determining the position or motion of the portable device with increasing sophistication and accuracy. Likewise, additional sensing capabilities are commonly available in the form of proximity and ambient light sensors, image sensors, barometers, magnetometers and the like. Still further, such portable devices often feature navigation systems, such as a Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), that enable precise determinations regarding geophysical position and movement. Corresponding advances in computation power, size, power consumption and prices make such portable devices powerful computing tools with extensive capabilities to detect their environment.
Given the noted popularity in portable devices having some or all of these capabilities, the user of such a portable device is typically associated with it to varying degrees throughout the course of the day. The user may be holding the portable device in hand, and further may be employing it for one of its functions such as phoning, texting, viewing, photographing, playing games or any of a wide variety of other applications. Alternatively, the user may also be carrying the portable device in a pocket, a holster, a purse, a backpack, or in any other manner that creates some type of physical connection with the user. Yet another possibility is that the portable device is in the possession of the user, but not physically connected, such as when the device is resting on a nearby surface or deposited in a holder.
However, even though the portable device may be associated with the user, there are circumstances during which it would be undesirable for the user to have certain types of interactions with the portable device. For example, when the user is operating a moving vehicle, safety may be compromised if the user was interacting with the portable device in a manner that required manual input and/or unduly distracted from the moving vehicle operation. Indeed, a number of jurisdictions have enacted “hands-free” laws that prohibit holding portable devices while driving.
Correspondingly, there is a need for techniques to determine whether a portable device is in a moving vehicle. Further, there is a need for techniques to determine how the portable device is associated with the user, and in particular, to determine whether the portable device is being held in the hand. Still further, there is a need for techniques to determine whether the user is operating the moving vehicle once it is determined the portable device is hand held and in a moving vehicle. It would be desirable to leverage the noted capabilities of the portable device for performing these determinations. In turn, the information about the user's association with the portable device and whether the user is operating the moving vehicle may be used for a number of purposes. For example, the portable device may warn the user when an unsafe association is detected and/or the user's behavior may be analyzed for entities such as insurance companies or employers for users whom operating moving vehicles is part of the job. As will be described in the following materials, this disclosure satisfies these and other needs.